


ashphaltum

by braithwaites



Series: the hounds of hades [6]
Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, F/M, Painting, Sunsets, Surprise Hand Holding, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 10:45:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16701010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/braithwaites/pseuds/braithwaites
Summary: Clouds stretched low a cross the sky, painted in brushes of gold she didn't know if she could quite capture. They trailed puffs of peachskin over a background of pure blue.“Prussian blue,” she whispered. “Zinc white. Carbon black.”





	ashphaltum

Charlotte kept her paints in a small tin box that was once home to her mother's loose Earl Grey tea. On the cover was an elegant woman and her equally elegant daughter, both of them dressed in lavish tea gowns that spilled over chairs that were pulled close to each other.

The picture was faded and flecked with dried paint from years of use.

She'd given up on keeping it pristine long ago, when painting shifted from a hobby to something that kept her fed.

When the box became too much of a mess, she would find a new one. Until then, she carried that piece of her mother with her and tried not to think too much of her, lest she ruin her painting or muss up her color mixing.

Staring out at the New Hanover sunset, a wrinkle formed in her brow. Diluting colors wasn't as easily done as it might have been with more extensive tools, so choosing between Cadmium and chrome yellow was a matter of squinting at the horizon for longer than she cared to.

Her head drifted to the side, a lock of hair falling from her loose bun.

Clouds stretched low a cross the sky, painted in brushes of gold she didn't know if she could quite capture. They trailed puffs of peachskin over a background of pure blue.

“Prussian blue,” she whispered. “Zinc white. Carbon black.”

Lifting one of the vials of pigment from the small traveling chest at her feet, she removed the cork at the top before removing one of the pins from her hair, using the tiny scoop-shaped end to deposit the smallest amount of ground powder onto the opened top of the tin box.

She reached for her vial of linseed oil, using just enough to wet the pigment, but when she blindly grabbed for the small glass muller she carried with her, it wasn't there. It had been replaced with a warm hand, tough with calluses but soft between them.

  
When Charlotte looked up from her lap, she followed the length of her arm to the hand that held hers, and then, rose to the face that was gazing right back at her, his dark eyes bright.

“Charles...” She bit on her bottom lip to keep from flashing him the grin he no doubt wanted. “I need my muller.”

The tool looked like a bauble against the pink flesh of his palm. “You mean, this?”

“You know what I mean.” Charlotte put on what she hoped was an innocuous expression – all big brown eyes, long lashes, and a narrow, but full-lipped mouth. “I need it in order to mix my paints.”  
  
Charles closed his hand around hers, but didn't pass her the muller. Instead, he bounced it in his open palm and tilted a little closer from where he sat on the rock she'd set up her table and chair next to. The shade was a nice, cool temperature, and the vantage point was very appealing...

“I need my hand, too,” she continued quietly, her thin brows pinching upward. “Come on. The sky will change soon!”

Rather than giving her an answer in the form of his words, Charles stood up from the weathered rock and leaned over her tiny table, his long, coal-black hair brushing its splintered surface with its faded-green charm.

“You'll remember what it looks like.” Charles kept the muller gripped behind his back. He let Charlotte's hand go, but only to touch over the quickly flushing skin of her cheek. “It's blue and yellow. You already put out the colors you need, see?”

He didn't give her the opportunity to 'see' anything.

Leaning in, Charles brushed his mouth over the corner of hers, all but guiding it upwards into a tiny smile. The furrowed expression she wore eased for a moment and was left to rearrange itself into bliss.

“It isn't just blue and yellow,” she protested weakly. “It's lead white, and chrome orange, and a little alizarin crimson.” The wrinkle in her brow returned, but was quickly smoothed away by a press of Charles's mouth to the skin. “I think, at least. God, it's been so long since I've had lessons. I hardly know what I'm doing anymore.”

Charles let go of a chuckle so warm, her stomach did a flip. She pressed her hand against it to make sure it hadn't escaped her entirely.

“You're going to kiss me,” he told her as he thumbed over the soft curve of her jaw and the little bit of fat that sat beneath it, smiling when she tipped her chin upward to lengthen her neck. “Until you remember all of the colors in the sky, Miss 'It Isn't Just Blue and Yellow.'”

“Charlotte,” she corrected him with a smile, then leaned up to press a kiss to his stubbly chin. “How many times do I have to tell you that you can just call me Charlotte?”

Charles tucked the stray lock of hair behind her ear, another quiet laugh on his lips. He laid a kiss beside her upturned nose before settling again at the curl beside her mouth.

There, he murmured her name in such a way that she practically forgot how to breathe for a moment. Her toes curled in her shoes, lifting her knees and threatening to overturn her tin box. She pressed her heels back down to the dirt and the grass to avoid spilling pigment down the front of her skirt, steadying her tin box with curled fingers.

She didn't remember the color of the sky, and as the sun dipped deeper behind the mountains, the color changed. Gold faded from the clouds. The trails of peach deepened to fiery shades of red.

With her eyes shut, all she could think of was Charles's face.

Ashphaltum and alizarin crimson and a hint of zinc white.

She wasn't sure about his lips. It was possible that she might not have the proper pigments to get them just right. She was horrible with portraits anyway. No amount of work could ever make a sketch of hers resemble the man she was so soft on.

Frustration didn't begin to cover it, but not at him... At herself, at her education, at the time she spent focusing on doing everything rather than focusing on what she loved to do.

Painting.

And, apparently, kissing.

“If I never remember...” Charlotte trailed off, her lips moving against his with every word. His sighs tasted of chewing gum. “Does that mean we'll never move from this spot?”

Charles curled a rough hand at the nape of her neck, above the high collar of her blouse, and ran his thumb along the tender, sun-reddened skin beneath the lackadaisical poof of her bun. His touch sent shivers down into her thighs. Her toes curled again, shifting fitfully in her shoes.

“Is the view that different now?” he asked, pulling away from the kiss just far enough to let her catch a glimpse of the horizon. “I... feel bad about pulling you away from your work.”

Charlotte stared out over the plain, one of her hands still curled deep into the loose fabric of Charles's shirt.

“I'll have to use more black and more intense colors, but I think I could manage.” She shifted her eyes back up to his, narrowing her eyes at him. “Why are you suddenly so ready to stop kissing?” Charlotte let go of his shirt and held her hand in front of her face, puffing a few breaths against her cupped palm. “Is my breath awful?”

Charles pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “No,” he said, sounding even more indulgent than before. The trickster was replaced by an angel, just like that. “I just want to watch you paint.”

He dropped onto the dirt in front of the rock and handed her the stolen muller that started everything.

That made sense. Her paintings weren't enough to get them much more than the price of pigments, but it was one of the only things she could do aside from play the piano, which was all sorts of useless in a transient camp of outlaws. Still, she wanted to keep kissing. She'd all but counted this landscape as a loss.

But then she looked at him and saw the way he craned his neck to watch the circular movement of the tiny glass muller in her palm as she mixed the paints with fresh-smelling linseed oil.

Charlotte was a sucker for curiosity. A question or an inquisitive look from Charles was all it took for her to crack, to bend his ear for hours on end about subjects he might've only feigned interest in for her sake. He never made her feel a fool for speaking passionately about things; he just listened, occasionally bobbing his head, his eyes brighter than anything she'd ever seen.

“Okay,” she said softly, reaching over to run her fingers through the loose front of his hair. “You may watch me for as long as you'd like.”

“I won't disturb you,” Charles told her as he settled into an even more comfortable position, one of his legs hitched up while the other stretched out over the grass. “Not unless you ask.”

Charlotte ducked her head, cheeks flaring again as she busied herself with mixing a rich Prussian blue.

She considered it. She considered reaching out her hand to him, fingers wiggling, and begging for another of his kisses. Very little could sate her, she'd come to realize with him.

But, in the end, Charlotte picked up her brush and began to work.


End file.
